Mr Kivlehan was boycotting today's hearing as a result, the solicitor said.

But just before the end of the 90-minute session Mr Kivlehan arrived to sit at the back of the court.

At the end of the hearing he said: “This is a bloody cover-up. As my wife was from India I am last on the list.”

He told the coroner Eamon McGowan: “I will not stand for this. I was discriminated against.

“I am going to India to have it done.

“Shame on you; shame on you.”

Mr Kivlehan, looking pale and distressed, added: “I am very lucky I came here given the state of my health.”

He was then approached at the back of the room by his father, who was at the hearing, and they both left the room together.

Dhara Kivlehan (Image: PA Wire)

Earlier Damian Tansey, solicitor for the Kivlehan family, claimed that Dhara was only transferred to specialist medical care in Belfast when Sligo hospital knew she was about to die.

He told the coroner the woman was not transferred to a centre of excellence for four days after the birth when she should have been moved three days earlier.

He claimed that when the helicopter winchman took delivery of Dhara for the flight to Belfast, staff at the Sligo hospital said to him: “It is only a matter of time.”

Mr Tansey told the coroner: “That is extremely relevant. It means staff at Sligo hospital allowed Mrs Kivlehan to remain in their charge until effectively she was beyond their recovery even though they ought to have known she should have been transferred three days before.

“If you don’t see that as relevant then we have a problem. If they didn’t transfer her to a centre of excellence then that is a problem as to how she died.”

Today's hearing was to hear submissions from legal representatives of the family and the HSE on the coroner’s decision to call six witnesses at the full hearing which is fixed for September 22.

Mr Tansey said the Kivlehan family were “stunned and sickened” by a decision to hold what would be a truncated inquiry.

They wanted an inquest jury to decide how Dhara was allowed to develop a form of pre-eclempsia, HELLP, and then lie in Sligo hospital for four days before the true gravity of her situation was appreciated.

He said the Northern Ireland coroner, John Lecky, was prepared to call 24 witnesses from the Royal Victoria Hospital and Sligo General Hospital if the inquest had been held in Belfast.

He made comparisons with the inquest in Galway on Savita Halappanaver when the coroner there took 60 statements and called 18 witnesses.

Mr Tansey said the Kivlehan family “are determined this inquiry and every aspect of it will be held openly and transparently in public.”

The coroner said he would review the list of witnesses. It could be “up or down” and he would notify legal representatives of the family and the HSE within three weeks.